by Beth Macy
Progressive doctors championed the carefully restricted use: Courtwright, “Preventing and Treating Narcotic Addiction—A Century of Federal Drug Control,” New England Journal of Medicine, Nov. 26, 2015.
“sour, puritanical shits”: Burroughs to Allen Ginsberg, April 25, 1955: Oliver Harris, ed., The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959 (New York: Penguin, 1994), 273.
they returned to spread-out social networks: Lee N. Robins et al., “Vietnam Veterans Three Years After Vietnam: How Our Study Changed Our View of Heroin,” American Journal on Addictions, May 2010: 203–211; author interview, Eric Wish, April 22, 2016.
the veterans who continued to struggle with addiction: Author interview, historian Nancy D. Campbell, Aug. 9, 2017.
“In the early 1990s, probably ninety percent”: Author interview, Courtwright.
bluntest moniker he could think of: After some heated exchanges with Purdue that ended with the company giving him a $10,000 “grant” for equipment to facilitate drug-awareness presentations, Bisch was persuaded to change the name to OxyAbuseKills.com, a decision he later regretted. “I was duped,” Bisch told me.
the drug’s sales in 2001 hit $1 billion: Barry Meier and Melody Petersen, “Sales of Painkiller Grew Rapidly, But Success Brought a High Cost,” New York Times, March 5, 2001.
Nuss, too, had lost an eighteen-year-old son: Author interviews, Lee Nuss, Jan. 23 and March 3, 2017.
only to have an unidentified woman: Author interview, Nuss, Jan. 23, 2017, and Doris Bloodsworth, “Crowd Protests Drug Maker,” Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 20, 2003.
Purdue’s marketing of OxyContin had been “appropriate”: Bloodsworth, “Group to Target OxyContin Maker in Orlando Rally,” Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 17, 2003.
“At the time, I knew very little about the drug”: Author interview, Barbara Van Rooyan, Jan. 16, 2017. The right-wing radio host made national headlines in 2003 after checking himself into rehab for an addiction to OxyContin, publicly admitting that he had tried to kick his painkiller habit twice before: Jerry Adler, “In the Grip of a Deeper Pain,” Newsweek, Oct. 20, 2003.
Sue Ella admired the way her mild-mannered husband was stifling: Author interview, Sue Ella Kobak, March 4, 2017.
Wright had signed off on a 1995-filed NDA review and “Care should be taken”: “Medical Officer Review,” NDA #20-553, 14, written by Curtis Wright, Team Medical Review Officer. The 68 percent figure, also included in the NDA, comes from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Pilot Drug Evaluation Staff, “Pharmacology Review,” submitted Dec. 28, 1994, NDA #20-553, 6.
“the biggest form of drug abuse today”: Chris Mullikin testimony, outlined in transcript of FDA’s “Anesthetic and Life Support Drugs” Advisory Committee hearing, Jan. 30, 2002, Gaithersburg, MD. Online at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/02/transcripts/3820t1.htm.
a decade later Portenoy conceded: Thomas Catan and Evan Perez, “A Pain-Drug Champion Has Second Thoughts,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12, 2012. “Did I teach about pain management, specifically about opioid therapy, in a way that reflects misinformation? Well, against the standards of 2012, I guess I did,” Portenoy told the reporters.
Van Zee pressed on, raising similar concerns: Barry Meier, Pain Killer: A “Wonder” Drug’s Trail of Addiction and Death (New York: Rodale Press, 2003), 185–91; author interviews, Dr. Art Van Zee, Sept. 23, 2016, and Feb. 11, 2017.
an ethical quandary a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter: John Fauber, “E-mails Point to ‘Troubling’ Relationship Between Drug Firms, Regulators,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 6, 2013.
The same Journal Sentinel reporter, John Fauber: Fauber and Ellen Gabler, “Doctors with Links to Drug Companies Influence Treatment Guidelines,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 18, 2012.
results of that investigation would end up: Paul D. Thacker, “Senators Hatch and Wyden: Do Your Jobs and Release the Sealed Opioids Report,” STAT, June 27, 2016.
“nothing’s come of it”: Author interview, Dr. Steve Gelfand, Feb. 9, 2017.
(That initial application would be rejected): John O’Brien, “Blumenthal Calls Out FDA Over OxyContin Petition,” Legal NewsLine, July 31, 2007. Rejection of it: Harriet Ryan, “Purdue Pharma Issues Statement on OxyContin Report; L.A. Times Responds,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2016.
“I’m a stubborn Dutchwoman”: Author interview, Van Rooyan.
Among RAPP’s first courtroom targets: Karen White v. Purdue Pharma, Circuit Court for the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court, Polk County, FL, Civil Division, 2003.
White claimed in her legal filing: Ibid.
the company bragged in a press release: Laurence Hammack, “OxyContin Settlement a Reversal of Fortune,” Roanoke Times, May 12, 2007.
“Personal injury lawyers” and the firm’s legal bills: Meier, Pain Killer, 232–33.
Purdue still had 285 lawsuits pending: “Former Drug Firm Worker Says He Was Fired for Being a Whistle-Blower,” Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), Aug. 25, 2003, quoting spokesman Timothy Bannon; Julie Fishman-Lapin, “Fired Former Employee Withdraws Lawsuit Against OxyContin Manufacturer,” Stamford Advocate, March 9, 2004.
His bosses banned him from undertaking: Described in Marek Zakrzewski v. Purdue Pharma, Superior Court of Danbury, CT, 2003. Case dismissed: Fishman-Lapin, “Fired Former Employee Withdraws Lawsuit.”
calling the allegations “baseless”: Fishman-Lapin, “Fired Former Employee Withdraws Lawsuit.”
to convince “public officials they could trust Purdue”: Barry Meier and Eric Lipton, “Under Attack, Drug Marker Turned to Giuliani for Help,” New York Times, Dec. 28, 2007.
2001 arrest of two Purdue employees: Ashanti Alvarez, “Arrests Heighten Battle Over Painkiller,” Bergen Record (NJ), July 6, 2001.
Giuliani brokered a behind-the-scenes negotiation: John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, “The Importance of Being Rudy—Close Up,” Washington Post, May 15, 2007. Giuliani role in DEA settlement: Meier and Lipton, “Under Attack, Drug Marker Turned to Giuliani.”
Purdue Pharma heaped praise on its American hero: Meier and Lipton, “Under Attack, Drug Marker Turned to Giuliani.”
Time magazine’s Person of the Year 2001: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2020227_2020306,00.html.
Purdue spent $500,000 defending the case: Elaine Silvestrini, “OxyContin’s Maker Cleared in Suit Over Sales Tactics,” Tampa Tribune, Feb. 9, 2005.
She’d been a champion of the drug’s painkilling properties: Ibid.; Silvestrini, “Firing Was Retaliation for Ethics Fight, Suit Says,” Tampa Tribune, Feb. 1, 2005.
one opioid-addicted Orange County veterinarian: Doris Bloodsworth, “Legal Drugs May Be Tracked—Jeb Bush Is Pushing for a Databank to Fight Abuse of Prescriptions,” Orlando Sentinel, March 25, 2003.
her lawyer had not proved the illegality: Order, White v. Purdue Pharma, Inc., U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, Jan. 26, 2005. From Richard Ausness, “The Role of Litigation in the Fight Against Prescription Drug Abuse,” West Virginia Law Review, Spring 2014: 1165: “Suits against Purdue by individual consumers have almost always failed because the company has successfully argued lack of causation, misuse, wrongful conduct, and expiration of the statute of limitations.”
“‘Don’t tell us what you believe’”: Author interview, Richard Ausness, Jan. 27, 2017.
he had a boyish appearance that belied: Jen McCaffery, “Brownlee Voted into Attorney Post for Virginia,” Roanoke Times, Oct. 13, 2001. The showboating earned Brownlee a reputation: Mike Gangloff, “Brownlee Resigns—May Run for Office,” Roanoke Times, April 17, 2008. Brownlee retried Knox after the 2006 acquittal and hung jury, a trial that ultimately saw the doctor convicted of racketeering, health care fraud, and distribution of marijuana, and losing his medical license in 2006.
Brownlee needed a big legal win: Brownlee prosecuted National D-Day Memorial Foundation president Richard Burrow twice for fraud, after which Burrow filed a prosecutorial misconduct complaint w
ith the Justice Department, but Brownlee was exonerated from wrongdoing, according to Gangloff, “Brownlee Resigns.” Both of Burrow’s cases ended in hung juries.
With plans to seek elected office: Author interview, Laurence Hammack, April 14, 2016; Brownlee himself announced he was running for Virginia attorney general in 2008, a year after the Purdue case was closed. He yielded the nomination to Ken Cuccinelli in 2009.
Udell wanted Meier taken off the beat: Daniel Okrent, “The Public Editor: You Can Stand on Principle and Still Stub a Toe,” New York Times, Dec. 21, 2003. Okrent said that Meier’s 2003 reporting on Rush Limbaugh’s addiction was “probably a mistake,” quoting Meier’s editor at the Times. “Certainly, the paper’s reputation could have been served by removing even the slightest hint of conflict,” Okrent wrote.
“Their agenda was to shut me down”: Author interview, Barry Meier, Jan. 24, 2017.
(Meier would not write about Purdue Pharma): Meier covered only two stories on the company between the publication of his book and the 2007 settlement, both of limited, technical scope: “Court Says OxyContin Patent Is Invalid,” New York Times, June 8, 2005; and, with Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Drug Maker May Buy Rival for $7.5 Billion,” New York Times, July 25, 2005.
“Never assume I already know!”: Van Zee loaned me a copy of the Wood Reports, compiled by Gregg Wood, from March 2004, which he’d saved on CD and which took up 361 pages of a Word document.
“elephant to a blind man”: Author interview, Emmitt Yeary, Jan. 24, 2017.
“he worked”: Author interview, Lisa Nina McCauley Green, Feb. 2, 2017.
“For a miner who avoids being crippled”: John C. Tucker, May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment (New York: Delta, 1998).
the country doctor was the perfect conduit: Yeary initially asked for $5.2 billion in damages in what he predicted would become a class-action lawsuit, but his quest for class-action certification was later dropped and folded into a civil case brought on behalf of McCauley and two similarly injured laborers from the region.
a patient Van Zee was by then treating: From an affidavit of Art Van Zee, filed in McCauley v. Purdue Pharma, Van Zee testified: “It was clear to me that he had developed profound opioid addiction during the course of his treatment with OxyContin. By opioid ‘addiction,’ I specifically mean…McCauley demonstrated tolerance to increased amounts of OxyContin; increased his dosage on his own; a characteristic withdrawal syndrome when he was attempting to come off OxyContin;…and continued use of OxyContin despite harm (physical, social, personal, and family harm) from his continued use of OxyContin.” McCauley v. Purdue Pharma, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Big Stone Gap Division, filed Oct. 31, 2004. McCauley initially went to Van Zee for help in weaning himself off methadone.
It didn’t matter that the septuagenarian: Author interview with Green; McCauley deposition, Jan. 22, 2003, Abingdon, VA; filed in McCauley.
Norton was sentenced to five years: Associated Press, “Four Sentenced in Lee County Scam—Corruption Plot Led to Hospital’s Bankruptcy,” Nov. 17, 2000. Norton’s treatment of McCauley in 1999 was outlined in McCauley’s medical records, subpoenaed from Van Zee for the case.
federal prosecutors were also investigating Norton: Sales-rep notes written by Kimberly Keith explain that Norton “has been convicted of money laundering etc and last week was sentenced to 5 years in fed prison, pulled me into a room to tell me that the US attorney’s office was going to get him with over prescribing of narcotics but got him with this one first, said we, as a company, should know that they are after us and making us enemy #1 with oxycontin”; written about a Nov. 20, 2000, visit to Norton’s office.
“the Shadow Company”: Author interview, Richard Stallard, March 3, 2017.
His family had sent him to rehab seven times: Author interview, Green.
Brownlee’s belief that Purdue had knowingly concealed: Author interview, Van Zee, Sept. 24, 2016.
New York Post reporter broke the news in 2005: Brad Hamilton, “Jury Eyes RX Bigs in OxyContin ‘Coverup’; Allegedly Hid Painkiller Peril,” New York Post, June 12, 2005.
“Sometimes people get intimidated by big companies”: Author interview, Randy Ramseyer, March 17, 2016.
only to leave his post in 2001: Gregory D. Kesich, “Former Prosecutor Backs Drug Company—Maine’s One-Time U.S. Attorney Tells Senators the Maker of Oxycontin Has Worked to Curb Abuse,” Portland Press Herald, Aug. 2, 2007. “The drug diversion problem was not caused by OxyContin, and it will not be solved by going after OxyContin as a whipping boy,” McCloskey said.
doling out prescriptions from the back seat: Author interview, Ramseyer; Dr. Denny Lambert, who was also addicted to opioids, was sentenced to fifty-two months in prison for illegally distributing OxyContin, Ritalin, and Dilaudid: Laurence Hammack, “Doctors or Dealers?,” Roanoke Times, June 11, 2001.
“Look, my view of the case was”: Author interview, John Brownlee, Sept. 30, 2016.
“his star power alone”: Author interview, U.S. assistant attorney, March 2, 2017.
a memo written by the federal prosecutors to Brownlee: From a memo draft written Sept. 28, 2006, from the assistant prosecutors to Brownlee.
“Brownlee, you are fine”: “Evaluating the Propriety and Adequacy of the OxyContin Criminal Settlement,” hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, July 31, 2007, online at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110shrg40884/html/CHRG-110shrg40884.htm.
senior Justice Department officer phoned Brownlee: Ibid.
eleventh-largest fine paid by a pharmaceutical firm: David Armstrong, “Purdue Says Kentucky Suit Over OxyContin Could Be Painful,” Bloomberg News, Oct. 20, 2014.
two thousand cardboard containers they’d filled: Hammack, “OxyContin Settlement a Reversal of Fortune.”
falsified charts created by Purdue: “Agreed Statement of Facts,” United States of America v. The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., and Michael Friedman, Howard R. Udell, and Paul D. Goldenheim, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Abingdon Division, May 7, 2007, 7–8.
(“I would not write it up at this point”): Point No. 36 of Attachment B to Plea Agreement, The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al., 13.
68 percent of the drug: Point No. 20(a.), The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al., 6.
oxycodone was harder to extract: Ibid.
OxyContin caused less euphoria: Point No. 43, 14, The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al.
Chapter Four. “The Corporation Feels No Pain”
Interviews: Sister Beth Davies, Dr. Art Van Zee, Andrew Bassford, Randy Ramseyer, Dr. Sue Cantrell, Barry Meier, Judge James Jones, Andrew Bassford, Jeff Udell, Lee Nuss, Laurence Hammack
the Barter stage featured a homegrown comedy: The Quiltmaker, a comedy by Catherine Bush, Barter’s playwright in residence, premiered at the Barter in the spring of 2007.
even written a poem: “OxyContin,” by Dr. Art Van Zee, Annals of Internal Medicine, April 6, 2004: 527.
“Everything I’d written was now justified”: Author interview, Barry Meier, Jan. 24, 2017.
voices broke periodically as they choked out: From a host of names submitted in memorial to Ed Bisch’s memorial website (no longer active, but Bisch provided me with a document he had archived that contained hundreds of names).
two moms in matching rain scarves held each other: Barry Meier, “3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case,” New York Times, July 21, 2007. Don Petersen took the photograph.
“What if it was your son or daughter”: Testimony of Victor Del Regno, about his son, Andrew, from the transcript of United States of America v. The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., and Michael Friedman, Howard R. Udell, and Paul D. Goldenheim, sentencing hearing, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Abingdon Division, July 20, 2007: 10–12.
“Brian is here in the courtroom with me today” and “I think jail is too good for you guys”: From the transc
ript of The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al., sentencing hearing, 28–30.
“I think you should go spend some time in a rehab facility”: Ibid., 20–21.
“a personal tragedy for Mr. Udell”: Ibid., White testimony, 92–102.
“a criminal, and that is horrendously harsh punishment”: Ibid., Good testimony, 103–109. Goldenheim left the company in 2004.
to jail him would be virtually unprecedented: Ibid., Mark D. Pomerantz testimony, 83–91.
“the enormous benefits of OxyContin far outweigh”: Ibid., Purdue Frederick attorney, Howard Shapiro testimony, 73–83.
“unprecedented” to hold pharmaceutical corporate officers: Ibid., Randy Ramseyer testimony, 67–72.
“they didn’t seem as unhappy as those three guys”: Author interview, Ramseyer, March 17, 2016.
every American adult around the clock: 2010 data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Super Bowl ads now targeted relievers: The 2015 ad was meant to promote Movantik, a first-of-its-kind constipation drug for painkiller users, though the ad didn’t directly mention the drug. The U.S. market for treating opioid constipation is projected to reach $500 million by 2019, according to Matt Pearce, “What the Super Bowl Constipation Ad Did Not Say,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10, 2016.
Purdue had earned over $2.8 billion: Caitlin Sullivan, “Punishing OxyContin’s Maker,” Time, July 20, 2007.
earn its way onto Forbes’s: Alex Morrell, “The OxyContin Clan: The $14 Billion Newcomer to Forbes 2015 List of Richest U.S. Families,” Forbes, July 1, 2015. The family dropped to number nineteen on the list in 2016, its estimated worth down to $13 billion, even though it had reaped some $700 million the preceding year, the magazine estimated, according to Chase Peterson-Withorn, “Fortune of Family Behind OxyContin Drops Amid Declining Prescriptions,” Forbes, June 29, 2016.
Mortimer Sackler even had a pink climbing rose: Bruce Weber, “Mortimer D. Sackler, Arts Patron, Dies at 93,” New York Times, March 31, 2010.